RoutineTracker: Fall 2019

Hope everyone is doing well this fall. With the changing of the seasons comes, you guessed it, BTB’s latest RoutineTracker.

Here’s what’s inside:

• The effects of my longest break from trumpet playing in the past 16 years
• Why I added some mouthpiece buzzing and what I’m practicing
• The fanciest fancy-graph BTB has ever fancied to create
• That time I thought my tooth was falling out & the mouthpiece pressure blues
• A killer jazz improvisation practice routine

Enjoy!

Longest Layoff Since High School

While my comeback compatriots are probably having a good laugh at the length of my latest ‘layoff’ I did want to mention it as it was somewhat revealing.

I left the horn behind for an eight-day family reunion in outside Cody, Wyoming. This was in-part because I knew it was going to be insane – eight adults, six kids under the age of seven, two dogs, two horses and six cats – and, I bought some of those cheap flights where you can’t bring more than a backpack. I opted against bringing the mouthpiece since I hadn’t been buzzing in awhile, and I didn’t want to mess with my chops before jumping back into some gigs once I got home.

To be honest, I didn’t expect much to happen. I’m no stranger to off-days and sometimes take a few days off, show up, and play fine. But this time I learned my lesson.

While my range and endurance remained about the same, I did lose some control of the sound. I’d describe the feeling as having lost some fine motor control at the aperture. This accounted for more cracked and pitchier notes.

The feeling at the aperture mostly came back after a day. Then, it took about a week before I felt like I was making progress again. I was also judging the shit out of myself. In the future, I’d opt to bring the mouthpiece as that might help to keep the aperture more in-check.

The other thing that came as a shock to me was that I missed playing. I missed it! Perhaps this will keep me from bitching about it so much in the future.

Why I Started Mouthpiece Buzzing

This trumpet ‘vacation’ is definitely part of the reason I’ve recently decided to add a bit of mouthpiece buzzing. The convenience is certainly a perk, but it’s also feeling like a natural progression of the pedal tone routine I’ve been blabbing on and on about.

After 10 months or so, the pedals have really started paying off. They evolved from something that messed my chops up to something I love as a warm-up. I use the metronome at 60 bpm and like to hold out the lowest note of each triad, softly, for a few measures. I’m pretty good down to the C#. The pedal C – maybe the only true ‘pedal’ – is also coming along.

By virtue of playing on – and trying to reign in – the more-spread chops of the pedal range, I’ve learned to keep my ‘good’ playing chops together, longer. Other musicians are complementing my sound – in the staff. This may come as something of a shock to my old friends. It also just feels good.

So the thing with the mouthpiece buzzing is that it makes my chops feel all crappy the way the pedals used to. See where I’m goin’ with this? I’ve been practicing the first part of the pedal tone routine, down to low F#, on the mouthpiece. Then, I play low F down to pedal C on the horn. I don’t worry too much about anything other than trying to play in-tune.

My Ears Are Out Of Shape And It’s Really Pissing Me Off 

One thing the mouthpiece has revealed to me is that my ears are out of shape.

For a few years, I was diligently ear-training and my fluency was on the up-and-up. It was awesome. However, I got burned out and took a little break.

Two years later, my sight-reading, improvising and relative pitch ID have remained good enough. The thing that is really pissing me off, though, is that I used to be able to pick up melodies more quickly and recognize what key they were in. That has gotten rusty. I’m also being more caught off-guard by the sound of a note when picking up the horn to play.

Listening to more jazz seems to help, but I’ll probably come up with something easy to keep the ears tuned-up as well.

Acquired Technique Practicing One Scale Since January

As you know, I am a systematic guy. I like tracking and think it’s fun looking back at the data. A slow and incremental approach is something I learned from exercise, and it has proven to work for trumpet playing as well.

This graph shows the tempo bumps of the diatonic triad pattern I began practicing this past January. Fair and evil hath cometh of this approach.

Troubles Of Going Too Fast

The green lines above illustrate the subdivision I was playing over the metronome. I like keeping the clicks on the slow side, and once I get up to about 80 quarter notes per minute, I tend to set the metronome back at half-speed and double the subdivision. However, this might not be such a good idea.

A one beat per minute increase of the metronome, while playing quarter notes, is a one note per minute increase in playing speed. If you are playing 8th notes, a single click on the metronome is a two notes per minute increase. So even though you might only speed the metronome up by one click per day, at eighth notes you’re moving through playing speeds more quickly.

I kind of realized this at the time, but failed to acknowledge the power of doubling. When switching to a 16th-note subdivision, each beat per minute increases the playing speed by four notes per minute!

Look at the two tempo drops under the 8th and 16th subdivision headings. Those where the times my technique completely spun out of control. Notice how quickly that happened under the 16th heading.

The Value Of Slow Growth

In January, I could easily play the pattern in any key at a pace of 38 notes per minute. Ten months later – and no additional trying required – I’m at 208 notes per minute. That’s a 548% increase, feeling as easy as day one. Therein lies the power of very slow, incremental growth.

Subdivision Fun

The 16th-note subdivision was fun for the rhythmic challenge of singing a triplet pattern in duple-meter. It took some time to get it feeling right. Try singing the 16th version while conducting or tapping in four. Always be aware of beat one. It’s a nice drill.

Triads in ‘three.’

Triads in Duple-Meter.

High Note Breath Attacks & The Mouthpiece Pressure Blues

If you don’t know what I’m talking about with the high note breath-attacks, check out this past summer’s RoutineTracker. Basically, I decided to push myself to high A, every day, using breath-attacks as a way to strengthen the embouchure.

It ended up being a massive amount of repetition, covering my entire range numerous times per day. I was playing on the softer side, and really focusing on pressing my chops toward the mouthpiece. It burned.

During the first month or so I was double-buzzing like crazy. My tone sounded like a dial-up modem. I stuck it out, though, and sometime during month-two was able to get through the routine and feel ‘gig ready’ the next day.

August through September was a solid stretch of feeling awesome. Not the high-notes per se, but rather, my general playing kept feeling a tiny bit better each day. Response and control were great and it got really easy to play soft.

However, in the three weeks since getting home from our family reunion my embouchure started feeling very tired. At some point, I started feeling vibrations along the top ridge of my left front tooth – right at the gumline – while playing. I didn’t think twice about it and kept shedding.

I was going hard and, admittedly, was OK with more mouthpiece pressure than normal. I figured I would adapt and be fine. I regret that decision now as after awhile I started getting seriously paranoid that the tooth was shifting. 

The tooth never really felt ‘loose’ but had more of a throbby/achy sensation. After about 10 days it starting feeling a little better, but I’m still acutely aware of it while playing. I think part of the problem was idealizing the concept of getting the pitches at the aperture without needing too much support from the torso. That, and changing the jaw position definitely exerts pressure in a different way.

If any of you have experience with this dental nonsense – please share below.

Triad Exercise Going Forward

I think that when I pick these drills back up I’m going to ‘start-over’ again with regards to range and tempo. Due to recent success switching from a dry to wet embouchure in the pedal register, I’m just about ready to do that for my entire range. In doing so, I kind of feel like it’s my last hurra as far as all of this embouchure obsessing goes. It’s been a long eight years.

And for the record, I’m not obsessed with high-notes. If my best G’s and A’s are behind me, I’m probably good with that. But they are a necessary tool of the trade for the kind of music I like to play. So, I will continue to strive for a healthy approach. You’d think the guy who sells the greatest trumpet course on the web would have it together by now.

😉

A Killer Jazz Improvisation Routine

For awhile there I was thinking I could get my chops to the ‘good enough’ mark and then switch over to jazz playing as my primary focus. However, I’m thinking the chops are more of an eternal slow-burn so I found a way to start working on improvisation more regularly.

In doing so, I had a brief run-in with a familiar psychological hurdle. I noticed that I wouldn’t practice jazz-playing for five minutes because I didn’t have an hour. That is stupid.

Realizing this was enough to get started. I put together a doable routine combining my two favorite pedagogies – the teachings of Kenny Werner in his book, Effortless Mastery, and the curriculum passed down from Lennie Tristano to Warne Marsh.

Werner suggests a routine of three exercises – a new line, a new rhythmic concept and a new bit of harmony. Move around and explore each of the these as you see fit. Stick with each until it is mastered. Then pick a new one. Keep going until you are awesome.

Tristanoites practiced from four basic concepts – singing along with recorded solos, technical ‘meter’ studies, slow-improvising and composition, using the ideas you’re currently practicing. I’ve found the most basic, applicable, and effective exercise in the slow improvising. Basically, you play by ear over a tune you’re working on with the metronome set somewhere between 60 and 80 bpm. At first, it’s kind of like pulling weeds, but then after awhile the melodies start coming through.

I capped my jazz-practice at three exercises; Slow-improvising over E blues, learning one bit of vocabulary over the blues at a time, and finally, getting around to learning a jazz solo that I have adored for the past 15 years or so.

As far as the blues vocabulary goes, I explore the line nice and slow until it starts cropping up in the slow-improvisation. For the solo transcription, I basically do the same thing, working one tiny lick at a time, beginning at the end of the solo.

The Calming Effects Of A Jazz Routine

Before, anytime I’d hear something I liked, I’d run to that lick or stylistic nuance and noodle around for awhile. Then, I’d get distracted by something else. As you can imagine, this amounted to a whole lot of nothing. Now, when I feel that way, I take it as a sign to go hit whichever of my three things feels right.

Looking Backward & Forward

I sincerely thank those of you who take the time to read this blog. While I certainly benefit the most from BTB, I do hope that you find these articles helpful, encouraging and inspiring.

This past year has been a special one. Since moving back to the east coast, our family has found a daily life more well-suited to us. Of course, there have been some utterly psychotic, stressful and depressing moments as well, but all-in-all things are good and I’m grateful to be alive.

On November 13th my pals and I in the Brian Setzer Orchestra depart for a 6-ish week national tour. We’re going to be blowing our asses off 5 days a week so I’m taking it nice and easy until then. I’ll do my best not to knock any teeth out.

Be well,

James

Here’s Finley